Obamateurism of the Day

posted at 8:05 am on September 1, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

Some have suggested that the modest remodel of the Oval Office should be considered an Obamateurism during a tough recession, but that’s unfair. Presidents have the specific perk of choosing their own decor, as do many executives in the private sector — and since the Oval Office reflects the personality of each Chief Executive, a new rug and reupholstering the furniture after eight years hardly qualifies as an outrage. The new rug also has a new feature, promoted by the White House to the media, of inspirational quotes on its circumference from great Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. At least we hope they are, because the President still hasn’t figured out the correct origin of one of the quotes included in that carpet:

The quotes — described as being “of meaning” to and selected by President Obama — are:

“The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The Welfare of Each of Us is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us” – President Theodore Roosevelt

Martin Luther King did say what the White House attributes to him, but it wasn’t original to King, and King never claimed it was. King quoted 19th-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who wrote it in 1853. As I noted in June 2009, Reverend Matt Tittle tried to inform the Obama campaign in April 2008 that they had misattributed the quote, but they never acknowledged his queries.

It’s one thing to misattribute a quote in a speech, and a little worse to ignore people who attempt to correct the mistake. It’s another thing entirely to have the misattribution written into the carpet of the Oval Office, and to have the White House continue to issue misinformation and shortchange the original author of the phrase.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at obamaisms@edmorrissey.com with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

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“The Welfare of Each of Us is Dependent Fundamentally Upon the Welfare of All of Us” – President Theodore Roosevelt

is very similar to Obama’s repeated exhortations that our “individual salvation is dependent on our collective salvation.” He’s brought this up at several commencement ceremonies. Now it’s going to be enshrined in the carpet of the Oval Office. Glenn Beck has hammered Obama numerous times over this issue.

DOJ must be miffed. All they got to do was change the look of their website and put a new quote up -one whose authorship is debated between 2 very different people according to an article in the Spectator and at American Thinker.

And on the quotes Obama uses above- I am not sure the moral universe is bending toward justice when we have our State Dept putting AZ law under the purview of the UN Human Rights Council when many of the countries on that council don’t respect human rights at all.

“Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The Constitution of the United States was created by the people of the United States composing the respective states, who alone had the right .” – James Madison

“I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.” – Barack Obama

t’s one thing to misattribute a quote in a speech, and a little worse to ignore people who attempt to correct the mistake. It’s another thing entirely to have the misattribution written into the carpet of the Oval Office, and to have the White House continue to issue misinformation and shortchange the original author of the phrase.

a new rug and reupholstering the furniture after eight years hardly qualifies as an outrage.

I’d agree with that, if they were just replacing a worn rug with a new one. But one article says that the rug they replaced was custom-designed and had cost $62,000. And I can’t help but wonder about the cost of a new custom rug woven with this president’s favorite quotes — that had to be pretty pricey too. Seems to be yet another unnecessary extravagance by this president at a time when so many Americans are out of work and/or on the public dole.

Spectator article about the DOJ quote has it going on the building during FDR’s time, used by Janet Reno, and one of the people they think is the author -Jenks- was a big supporter on international law.

Kind of makes sense that Holder would use it seeing what he did with Az and the UN.

It’s another thing entirely to have the misattribution written into the carpet of the Oval Office, and to have the White House continue to issue misinformation and shortchange the original author of the phrase.

…not surprised at all.

Liberals have rewritten history to suit their ideology to the point that facts just don’t matter to them anymore.

…generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… -BO

Hey.. he’s the president, he can do what he wants. If he wants to take credit for having said “let there be light…” then I’m sure that will be just fine with folks. Right?

Seriously, this guy is something else. Conveniently ignores anything that doesn’t go with his line, yet expects folks on the other side to do as they’re told. Very typical libbie behavior, I guess. Frustratin’ though.

The new rug also has a new feature, promoted by the White House to the media, of inspirational quotes on its circumference from great Americans like Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

This unique design was done on purpose. “It is The Ones” way of correcting anyone who disagrees with him. When you have not live up to his expectations he tells you to stand in the corner, that’s right he forgot there are no corners in an oval. and he has a diagram of all of the phrases on a diagram on his desk blotter, so he kows exactly what he requires you remember. Then he further belittles you by telling you to read the carpet and remember the words he lives by?????

Before he leaves that unattributable verse will be credited to him because he will demand it.

Naturally he would put those quotes on the carpet , after all isnt that what Propaganda is all about ? Shoveling one set of rhetoric to your critics and naive citizens , all the while hammering home a different message to your radical elite supporters and ruling against the will of the people ?

Well it’s kind of a cool idea to put those quotes on a rug in the Oval office. (I’m kind of surprised he didn’t put one of his own quotes in there hahahhaha.) But come on, this is the Oval Office…these kinds of things should be checked and double checked so we don’t have bloopers on the rug.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

At least he didn’t use the Democrat’s favorite quote from the Bush years, which they falsely attributed to Jefferson: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Oh, wait, dissent isn’t cool anymore . . . .

Martin Luther King did say what the White House attributes to him, but it wasn’t original to King, and King never claimed it was. King quoted 19th-century Unitarian minister Theodore Parker, who wrote it in 1853.

Even if King didn’t invent this quote, Obama knows that Martin Luther King carries more weight with his supporters than the relatively unknown Theodore Parker.

Of the five quotes in Obama’s carpet, the King/Parker quote is the only one attributed to a black man. According to the above biography, Parker was a WHITE abolitionist (to his credit), who was also criticized in his day for doubting Jesus’ miracles, and some people doubted whether Parker was a Christian. With Obama’s receiving his own “Christian” faith from Jeremiah Wright, would Obama want to call attention to Parker in the White House rug, or credit the quote to King, whose faith is doubted by no one?

…generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… -BO

If the money to remodel the Oval Office came from the stimulus plan and was viewed by 20 million people, can the government count them as “lives affected” (the new metric for counting “jobs saved or created) by the stimulus?